The stock market is insane. It is bat-guano crazy in every sense of the word. It’s loony-tunes. The market is like your crazy bi-polar manic-depressive aunt with the fifteen cats. Sometimes it goes through fits of absolutely on-top-of-the-world delusional optimism, and then turns around a short time later and its dumping good assets at fire sale prices like the world’s going to end tomorrow.

And every single day, your crazy aunt will come knocking on your door with an offer to buy shares and get into business with her. That’s what the market does: It offers you a chance to buy or sell shares, but only at whatever prices the deranged, crazy cat-lady aunts running the trading desks on Wall Street thinks is a good price today.

The crazy aunt can’t control her madness. Her madness is the collective amalgamation of the shifting, transigent and irrational moods of millions of market participants, trying to balance the emotional poles of fear and greed like a gang of spastic chimpanzee chefs trying to cook a stew and instead going bonkers with the spice cabinet.

That works out for some people who can wait out the swings and are happy with a pretty modest long-term return. But a lot of our clients don’t want your crazy aunt for a business partner, thank you very much.

They’ve elected to self-direct at least a portion of their retirement accounts, for three reasons:

They enjoy the challenge managing their own money, personally, rather than delegate that function to a money manager.

They have expert knowledge and professional experience that gives them a competitive advantage in one or more fields of business or investing, and therefore believe they can achieve superior risk-adjusted returns over time by focusing on these areas.

They want more effective diversification than conventional IRA and 401(k) investments can provide.

While the stock market has a long track record of generating positive return for investors around the world, it can only do so in the aggregate. It does not exist to serve the cash flow needs of any individual (nor should it be relied upon to do so). It subjects investors to wild and unpredictable market declines of 30,40 and 50 percent, and it does so multiple times for each generation.

These create fantastic platforms for those investors lucky enough to catch the bottom, but it’s not a firm foundation, by itself, to support a meaningful strategy for providing retirement security for yourself and your loved ones.

As of this writing, the Dow has fallen 588 points on Monday, August 24th, 2015, bringing the market into correction territory. Will it continue falling from here? Will it climb tomorrow, never meeting its current price level again? Nobody knows for sure, and those who think they do are deluding themselves.

We do know that for the last week – and indeed, over the past few months, our current crop of clients who have opted out of relying entirely on crazy bipolar aunts to set asset prices on their retirement funds, instead opting to invest in precious metals, real estate generating reliable rental income, farms and ranches devoted to food production, small private businesses nimble enough to navigate rapid economic changes, and other similar opportunities have, on the whole, been well served by declaring independence from Wall Street.

If you’d like to consider joining them, we would welcome a conversation with you. American IRA, LLC is a leading administrator of self-directed IRAs, solo 401(k)s and other retirement accounts. We handle compliance, recordkeeping, tax statements and transactions on your behalf – all at a low cost based on your transactions and activities, rather than on a percentage of assets under management – a much more cost-efficient fee structure that can save thousands of dollars per year for some accounts.

You don’t have to rely on your crazy aunt in the attic to determine the value of your assets. You can take personal control and get away from the madness.

Call us today at 866-7500-IRA(472), or visit our website at www.americanira.com, for much more information.